Disadvantages Of Empowerment

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According to Wegge (2000), the term “participation” is defined as a process in which influence is shared between leaders and followers. In line with that, Yukl (2010) highlighted the four advantages of employee participation. They are: improved decision quality, greater rate of decision acceptance by participants, increased satisfaction with the decision process, and more evolvement in decision-making skills. That is not all, Mohrman and Lawler (2012) declared that through participation, employees are able to decide on the work that they do, understand their performance level and comprehend the outcomes of the task instead of solely relying on the organisation to guide them in these areas. Consequently, the behaviour of the leader that promotes …show more content…

One of the aspects is the psychological state behind the follower’s behaviour that is due to his/her leader’s empowering behaviour while the other is linked to the characteristics of the leader’s behaviour that enables employees to be empowered (Lee & Koh, 2001). (Conger & Kanungo, 1988) pinpointed empowerment as a motivational construct which uses employees’ psychological need for self-determination and personal efficacy as a focal point. They defined empowerment as “a process of enhancing self-efficacy of organisational members through identifying and removing conditions that foster powerlessness both by formal organisational practices and informal techniques of providing efficacy information” (p. 203) Furthermore, Konczak, Stelly and Trusty (2000) claimed that empowerment is a type of leadership that is portrayed by four dimensions. The first dimension is the encouragement of self-directed decision-making which refers to the extent to which managers support independent decision making. The second dimension is the encouragement of self-directed problem solving. This dimension talks about being proactive in detecting problems in work processes and taking initiatives to amend these problems (Fay & Frese, 2001). The penultimate dimension is sharing information and knowledge. The final dimension is the encouragement of innovative performance which involves leadership behaviour that advocates calculated risk-taking and new ideas, gives performance feedback and sees mistakes as a chance to learn. These aspects illustrate the leader’s role as facilitating instead of directing and restraining. Thus, employee behaviour can be positively impacted by empowering leadership behaviour through the improvement of workers’ instrumental skills and abilities and related self-efficacy in their duties (Conger & Kanungo, 1988). Consequently, it is then not very

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